What I Learned (Essay)

This semester, Fall 2012, I took the class, Introduction to Sociology 100, and I learned a lot about the world that I live in. I never paid attention to society as much as I did this semester because of the things that stood out to me from what I learned. Professor Applewhite not only was an amazing help, but someone who I know, understood what he was talking about in every chapter that we focused on in the text. He also is someone who is passionate about what he teaches and that made the class more interesting. I was a bit hesitant to take this class because I was told that it’s a lot of reading, which it was. Though, it was much reading and studying, it was beneficial. For a person who is as young as me, heading out in this cold crucial world very soon, the things that I learned from this class, I will forever take with me and apply it to every journey that I embark.

To start off with things that I learned from this class, the first was to understand how people can transition themselves into a whole different person when they are given a job/role that requires him/her to have power. This information I got was from the video that we watched, “The Standford Prison Study – Experiment Video”. It surprised me to see how the security guards and those who aren’t inmates act when they are given jobs, knowing that they don’t behave like that outside of their uniforms. Another topic was learning about culture. I was always open to other people cultures because I know everyone isn’t raised by the same family, not raised in the same environment, and not even raised in the same country. What I didn’t realize was what was part of one’s culture is the fact that everything such as what we eat, drink, how we dress, how we behave in different settings, language, how we speak, and how we think is also a part of one’s culture and everyone has their own.

What I was taught about social structure was that it constrains social behavior by putting limits on it, but, it enables social behavior by providing the context in which people can interact. What makes up a social structure is recurring patterns of behavior. Also, what links people to one another and to patterns that constitutes social structure are status and roles. Statuses are a position in the social system that can be occupied by an individual, and roles are the sets of expected behaviors associated with particular statuses. For example, I’m a daughter and a student which are some of my statuses and my expected behavior is to listen and to obey my parent and give respect to my mother. Some roles a student would be, to come to school on time, study, participate in class, and to complete my assignments. That I knew about, but I didn’t know that I had a status. I thought that you had a status after you completed your years of school and made something out of yourself such as becoming a doctor, lawyer, nurse, or a teacher.

Something that was a piece of great information was the qualities that differentiate us humans from animals. Though an animal may, eat, sleep, communicate with other animals in their own ways, have emotions, and give birth, while humans do the same thing, what differentiate us is that we are social and cultural in nature. Being social, he/she survives by depending on others, learning how to survive from others, and developing individual and human qualities through socialization. Being cultural is basically one who interprets the world according to what they've learned in society.

The last chapter we covered was about class and this chapter is one that I would continue to read multiple times because it is very important. There is the Capitalist, Middle Class, Working Class, and Under Class. These classes are segregated, treated differently, and have different experiences. Some are put into classes based on wealth, race, or even gender. Members in the upper class, (capitalist), often generate income through their wealth, rather than through employment. So some of these people do not really have to work or if they do work they do not have an actual 9-5 job.  People in the middle class contribute to specialized knowledge and expertise to the economy. Had I not learned about this I would’ve considered myself as middle class, but I realized that there is such thing as upper middle class and lower middle class. The working class require some skill and knowledge, basically people in this class live pay check to pay check and struggle with persistent debt while the underclass do not have an ongoing relationship to the mainstream economy. It’s sad but its reality and we just can’t escape it. We are labeled, and judged and often looked down on based on our resources, what we look like, our skin color, how we talk and even where we live. Sociology really opened my eyes a lot more to what goes on around me and to others. Hopefully certain things will change in the future, but the way how things are going in today’s world, I’m not too confident about that. But if we as a people come together to help make a change, most likely something can be done. Sociology is a beneficial course and I would recommend anyone to take it. I had an interesting semester and with this course I would be able to think above, outside and beyond.